


you’re the answer to the question (i’m not asking)

by amandaskankovich



Series: you're the answer [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1701659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandaskankovich/pseuds/amandaskankovich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One knocked on the door and the other let her in.</p><p>And that’s so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you’re the answer to the question (i’m not asking)

**Author's Note:**

> Slurs trigger warning just in case.
> 
> Also consider this an au because it basically is one.

It’s not what you think because the thing is…she’s always liked boys. She’s got a million different reasons not to, yeah, because in the end they all do seem to be the same: Smelly.  
Useless.  
Scary.  
There are exceptions of course. There are the good ones.  
The best person she’s ever met in her life has a dick in his pants.  
The rub of the whole thing is the fact that she doesn’t is what makes him not an option for her.  
(Don’t think about it.)  
(Stop thinking about it.)  
But it also makes him precious.  
Makes him safe.  
That goes against everything she’s ever been taught but then she thinks what has she ever actually been taught?  
She can pull a trigger. She can swing a hammer. She can hurt someone, really hurt them. With her fists and her teeth.  
She can let them hurt her and get right back up again and go on.  
She can do that much.  
At least.  
And nobody fucks with a Milkovich.  
(Except a Milkovich.)  
*  
Karen Jackson tells her she’s always liked boys too.  
Mandy Milkovich is not even sure how she ended up here.  
But one knocked on the door and the other let her in.  
And that’s so much.  
*  
Karen Jackson’s room is soft and pink and princess-y.  
Small plastic, teddy bear eyes with their black button eyes stare at Mandy from a bookshelf across from the bed.  
The first time Karen had sex she was eleven.  
The first time Mandy had sex she was too.  
(Not with each other btw.)  
"You going to tell me about it?" Karen had said drawing little red hearts all over her white sandals.  
Karen’s mother had just bought them for her that day.  
Mandy was wearing a pair of Mickey’s old sneakers and they were too big.  
And one of Iggy’s plaid shirts.  
"I thought it be more fun," Mandy had said sipping her milk.  
"Yeah," Karen said a little while later, "Me too."  
*  
It’s 5 years since that lunchroom.  
"Are you going to tell me about it?" Karen asked.  
"No," Mandy said.  
"Oh come on," And Karen started poking at her poke, poke, poke.  
"You ever gonna tell me why you got "Whore" tattooed on your arm?" Mandy asked.  
(She traces the w with her finger the h, the o, the r, the e and Karen lets her.)  
The poking has stopped.  
"Take a wild fucking guess." She said.  
Something to do with their dads. It was always something to do with their dads. Neither of them ever said it out loud but it was.  
Always.  
"Can I sleep here tonight?"  
"Yeah, sure, whatever."  
*  
Dads.  
What even was the fucking point?  
"There are villages where women are in control. The men just show up to fuck them and then they leave. They only use them to make kids. They do all the shit that’s supposed to make men so fucking necessary: Hunting. Starting fires. Killing lions. All that shit they do it on their own. And there are no wars because there are no stupid fucking men."  
"What do they do with the boy babies?"  
"I don’t know. Kick ‘em out when they pop their first boner?"  
"Neat," Karen said.  
"What do they do when they want to have sex and there aren’t any men around?"  
"Take a wild guess. Fuck themselves. Fuck each other."  
*  
She thinks about it later and guesses Karen was probably waiting for a cue.  
But she was the one who’d told the story.  
And this wasn’t the first time this had happened.  
This wouldn’t be the last.  
She’s kissed Karen more times than she can count.  
And this was just one more time to add to the tally that neither would admit to keeping.  
*  
It’s not what you think.  
But it’s probably not not what you think either.  
Tell you the truth she’s not really sure what the fuck this is because it’s never not been happening.  
At the same time it’s never been this thing either could ever really say out loud.  
It’s always just sort of been.  
*  
When Mandy showed up to school in her brother’s hand me downs and that cunt Brittney Merkins had walked by Mandy at lunch with her gaggle of bitches behind her pinching her nose and saying, “What smells like dog shit?”  
And right on cue all the other girls had screamed, “Mandy!”  
And she was going to do something of course she was going to do something but what she’d forgotten that Karen later reminded her off was that she’d already been in trouble twice that week and one more fight meant a suspension.  
And being home alone watching her mom die and her dad drink was the last fucking thing Mandy wanted.  
(Karen had helped her with the make up on her eye from last time…)  
So she couldn’t just let that shit stand but at the same time there would be consequences.  
Inside her head she’d said, “Fuck it.”  
But before she even had the chance to react there was Karen with her plastic lunch tray swinging it into Brittney’s face.  
Breaking her nose.  
Earning her first suspension.  
Not really Karen’s m.o. blood and tears. She preferred the psychological damage. If there had been more time maybe she would have said something about how Brittney was just jealous because her step dad was tired of fucking her and she was feeling old.  
Or about how maybe she should go back into the bathroom and puke one more time. That half a brownie she’d eaten was starting to show in her ass.  
But there hadn’t been time.  
So blood and tears it was.  
It had never not been happening.  
*  
If Mandy was the type to dig deep.  
Really really go there into the dark and deep pit of her maybe she’d know to be true what she’d always thought might be the case if she could get to the center of the sucker.  
The equation that’s right in front of her.  
The answer to something she’s trying not to look to closely at.  
She knows the answer or thinks she does.  
But what’s the question?  
*  
The thing is she’d bought into all that fairytale bullshit.  
The princess and the dragon and the Knight coming to rescue her.  
Maybe she didn’t really have a right to because face facts those stories were never about her.  
Mandy Milkovich.  
(What smells like dog shit?)  
But she believed in knights and she believed in princesses.  
She really did.  
*  
She presses her forehead to Ian’s.  
She touches Karen’s wrist.  
She ignores the question because she already knows the answer.  
And the answer fucking hurts.  
*  
When she walks into Ian’s brother’s bedroom and pulls her shirt off in front of him and watches him do the same she tells herself she’s moving forward.  
Because she is.  
Isn’t she?  
(He’s not as tall as Ian.)  
(He doesn’t hold her right.)  
Afterwards she reaches down under her bed for her shirt and finds one of Karen’s.  
*  
"Get a skank tattoo and we can match."  
"Fuck off."  
*  
Karen tells her, “You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong if you don’t want to.”  
A little while from now Ian will press his forhead against hers.  
He will know the worst thing about her.  
(Mandy Milkovich smells like dog shit.)  
And he’ll just hold her closer.  
And he’ll offer to go to the clinic with her but she won’t let him.  
*  
Karen lets her trace the w, the h, the o, the r, the e.  
Karen will be standing right there in the waiting room a little while from now.  
Waiting for her.  
*  
Here’s the question: Is she in love?  
Here’s the answer: So much, so much.  
But knowing the answer it doesn’t fix anything.  
Water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink.  
*  
She’s kissed Karen 63 times and not. enough.  
She’s kissed Ian one time and not. enough.  
*  
They’re not options. Not seriously. Not forever. You can go through the motions.  
Call yourself his girlfriend. But you’re not.  
It’s not your fault.  
It’s not his fault.  
Just is.  
Get called her “girlfriend” and…it means something else because it has to.  
It’s not her fault.  
It’s not your fault.  
Just is.  
*  
It’s not something you get to say out loud with either of them.  
If you know the question and you know the answer but all the answer does is make it all so much worse what the fuck can you do?  
Kiss his brother and make it count.  
*  
And it’s almost.  
Almost.  
But what’s almost in the end?  
Really?  
*  
It’s nothing.


End file.
